


Where I End (And Where She Begins)

by nonbinarynica



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Transistor AU, mute!kairi, that tag alone should be warning enough if you've played the game, the transistor weapon is a keyblade because it better suits the kh characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28892262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarynica/pseuds/nonbinarynica
Summary: RiKai Transistor AU. That's it. That's the fic.Alternatively:Riku is killed, and Kairi is left in possession of the murder weapon. Carrying said weapon with her, she goes on a journey to hunt down those responsible in a desperate search for both answers and revenge.
Relationships: Kairi/Riku (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you've played Transistor, you should already know how this AU is going to end. If you haven't... I am so, so sorry in advance. Actually, even if you HAVE played it I'm still sorry. I'm just sorry all around. I promise this is not only the most depressing AU I've ever written in terms of plot and angst, but it will likely be the ONLY depressing AU I will ever write as well.
> 
> For you see: this AU will NOT have a happy ending. Well. I mean guess it will? It honestly depends on the individual reader's definition of "happy". It could be a bittersweet ending; it's up to you to decide for yourself as you read. With that in mind, I do still ask that you please proceed with discretion upon going into this AU, should you choose to do so. 
> 
> And if so, I thank you in advance for indulging me. 
> 
> Because I'll be honest with you all: the first time I played Transistor, I fell almost immediately in love with it as a whole ─ the story, the visuals, the soundtrack, all of it ─ and my RiKai loving brain, as sometimes tends to do, thought to itself "hey, what if this was a RiKai AU? With Kairi as Red and Riku as the Transistor?" And I remained obsessed with the idea even after I saw the game's ending. However, this was a while ago, and I never actually got around to doing anything big for it in terms of writing it out; the idea was lying dormant in the back of my mind for some time until just recently when I came across a Transistor gifset on tumblr, and was reminded of the concept of it being a RiKai AU to begin with.
> 
> And lo and behold, this fic has now come into being.

Her voice. It's… _gone_ . Even now as she, with a mournful expression and tears down her cheeks, kneels in front of her boyfriend whose body is now sitting slumped against the wall, Kairi opens her mouth to say his name, and… nothing. No noise. Nothing at all audible. She tries once more. _Riku…_ again, nothing. His name doesn’t even come out in a whisper. Kairi lets out a frustrated huff through her nose, upset that she can’t seem to fucking _talk_ ─ she’s a _singer_ , for god’s sake, her voice is _important_ to her _…_! ─ but other than her huffing, though, there’s still no sound at all, just the soft whistle of the wind around them.

… That is, until she hears his voice. 

“Hey, Kairi.” 

Her eyes go wide, and quickly from where she’d been staring at his body, move up to his face. His eyes are closed. He’s _dead_ . And yet, it’s still unmistakably his voice speaking up, addressing her. Saying her name, the way he’d so lovingly and affectionately said her name a thousand times before in their lives up until this point. But Riku’s voice doesn’t come from _Riku_ , no. It comes from the giant weapon now embedded in his stomach, the gray of the key-shaped blade itself stained red around where it’d been stabbed into him. How…? 

“Would you mind getting this out of me…?”

_Why is the keyblade talking as Riku, and why is it asking me to_ **_remove_ ** _it_ , is all she can wonder even as she carefully gets to her feet and wraps her hands around the hilt.

“That’s it. C’mon, now, pull…”

There’s Riku’s voice again. Kairi inhales, exhales, and then yanks with all her might. With the rather sickening sound of blade sliding against both bone and flesh, the keyblade finally slides free from his torso, and once out of him the tip of it drops with a resounding thud onto the ground. As it does so his blood splatters against the asphalt, and it’s… unpleasant to both hear and see. 

“There! Together again.” Riku’s voice speaks up again, and Kairi looks at the keyblade she’s now holding with both hands. “Well, okay… sort of.”

Great. She’s now stuck with the weapon that was used to kill him. She can’t lift it right away, as it’s much heavier than she expected it to be, so she instead resorts to dragging it along for now as she moves away from his body. 

“What a night, huh? All that matters to me, though, is that _you’re_ still in one piece.” Riku ─ er, the keyblade ─ muses, and the tone of his ─ its? ─ words is nothing but dry wit. Even then, there’s still an element of sincerity ─ albeit with some sadness ─ to the words, and she frowns slightly. Sure, _she’s_ in one piece, but… it doesn’t change the fact that she survived the events that went down prior to now, and he didn’t. It doesn’t change the fact that _Riku_ had been the one to move in front of her at just the right second, right at the moment Xehanort had thrown the keyblade with careful precision in her direction, and doing so had only led to him _bleeding out_ in the spot Kairi had managed to get him away to.

“Kairi? Kai? You’re not saying anything. You normally would have sassed me by now.” The seemingly Riku-possessed keyblade calls her name, followed by the _nickname_ he always gave her as well as a somewhat playful inquiry, and for some reason, as if she expects the now sentient keyblade to be able to sense her doing so, she shakes her head. There’s hesitance, mixed with realization, in the words that the keyblade says next. “... Did they… oh, _no._ But I─” silence, a pause, then “Shit. I… I tried to save you. But I guess… I’m so sorry, I couldn’t save your voice, Kai.” Again she shakes her head, and there’s then a low ─ though also sad ─ chuckle from the keyblade. “No worries, huh? Okay. I guess… I can do the talking for the both of us.” Kairi nods, and the keyblade hums then, as if in thought. “Well, I guess we should get moving, yeah? You can’t exactly stick around here. Not unless you want the Dusks or Shadows to find you ─ ‘cause I’m guessing there’s a number of them, if not here, then nearby at least.” 

Right. 

Kairi takes a step further away, and the keyblade makes a low grating sound against the asphalt. She winces at first, but tells herself it’s a sound she’ll have to get used to. Dragging it along as she walks, she looks around at where they are. It’s cold in this particular City of the World That Never Was, and she’s grateful she’s at least got Riku’s jacket wrapped around her to keep warm. As the redhead moves, she continues to keep a watchful eye on her surroundings. There’s a sound ahead, and her eyes snap in front of her─

Dusks, rising up from the ground and slithering towards her.

“Looks like they found you after all,” the keyblade says, and Kairi narrows her eyes at the beings in front of them both. “You ready?”

She nods and charges at the Dusk closest to her, swinging the bloodied keyblade with every ounce of strength she can muster. It phases through the Dusk with a faint _hiss_ , causing the creature to dissipate. **_Alright, you bastards, who’s next?!_ **Even without her voice Kairi lets her thoughts do the talking in its place, and she continues to swing the keyblade ─ vanquishing Dusks left and right until she’s left panting slightly.

“Nice job, Kai. Now, let’s go ─ head through that alley close by. I think I know where we are, and I can get you to the Bay if you follow my instructions, okay?”

She does just that, makes her way towards and through the nearby alley, and upon entering the open area she finds herself in next, more Dusks appear and the keyblade groans in exasperation. 

“Great, more of these creeps. You’ve got this, okay? Just… keep using the keyblade.” It’s weird to hear Riku’s voice coming from a keyblade, and telling her to _use_ said keyblade ─ but she listens anyway, and fights off the new Dusks one by one. “You’re a natural,” Riku tells her once she’s defeated them all, and she smiles. “Now, see that nearby doorway on the building to your right? Head through it.”

It looks plain enough, and Kairi shrugs before following through with Riku’s suggestion and making her way over. Passing through the doorway as instructed leads her to an elevator. 

“Go ahead and take this up to the top; if we’re where I think we are, then doing so will give you a view of the City as a whole and we can decide our next move from there.”

Kairi gets in and rides the elevator a number of stories up to the roof, and once she’s there the view she finds of the rest of the City is nothing short of spectacular. However ─ Riku seems adamant on the two of them _not_ staying where they are. 

“It’s a nice view,” he tells her, “but we can’t stay here in this particular area. We have to get as far away as possible, okay?”

She nibbles at her lower lip in contemplation. She gets it. Riku is paranoid about the Organization, about _Xehanort_ , coming after her again, but… 

“Kairi. What are you doing?” He asks as she steps away from the edge of the rooftop, turning on her heel and dragging the keyblade with her to head out on a whim, a split second decision ─ she’s going after Xehanort, and the others at the very top of the Organization’s ranks. She isn’t sure whether she wants answers, or revenge for Riku’s murder, but… she’ll take whichever she can get, whichever comes _first_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kairi comes across someone new, and after some convincing from Riku they agree to aid her in her mission.

After having made her way along to the opposite side of the rooftop promenade where another doorway lead to a stairway to climb down, Kairi finds herself exiting the new building a block over. Just a few yards away, some more Dusks slither along in a group. They’re also accompanied by some Shadows, and Kairi frowns. This area of the City seems to be crawling with the beings, and quite literally too. 

“Let’s go,” Riku says, and she grits her teeth and makes her way over. One of the Dusks spots her before the others do, and it lunges for her when she gets close enough. She holds the keyblade up to deflect its clawing at her face before swinging it into the Dusk’s body, and it, too, dissipates like the Dusks from before had. A Shadow jumps her while its fellow Shadows move in and the Dusks slither into a circle to surround her; Kairi slashes through the first of the former, watching as its body dissipates into purplish-black smoke, and then quickly takes a step back away from the advancing Dusks and remaining Shadows.

“There’s a lot of them,” Riku observes. 

**_Not for long,_ ** she thinks, even despite knowing that Riku can’t _hear_ her. 

“What are you going to do?” he asks, and Kairi mentally weighs her options, taking a moment to analyze the situation.

She isn’t given very much longer at all to do so, however; she’s forced to almost immediately side-step when a Dusk lunges for her, then slashes the keyblade into its side as best she can, and when she hears the telltale _hiss_ she grins. Unfortunately, in the process of doing so to avoid the one Dusk she also steps too close to another; it swings one of its arms to slash at her, the tip of the long limb surprisingly sharp enough to leave a large bloody scratch along her cheek, and causes her to stumble back a bit, startled, while blinking rapidly. Her cheek stings where it scratched her; having always done her best to avoid them, she’s never actually encountered or been hit by a Dusk ─ much less across the face ─ until now. She scowls and stabs the keyblade into the Dusk out of frustration. Riku is right… there _are_ a good number of them here. Still, she’s determined. So she keeps going, continues fighting them off one by one. 

When she’s done, she’s admittedly a bit battered and worn out ─ she’s used to singing, not fighting ─ but she continues trekking on. Soon enough, she comes across a plaza with several posters on one of the building’s walls. At first glance, they’re nothing of interest, but then she does a double take upon the realization that they’re all posters advertising last night ─ advertising _her_ in her debut role as a singer. Kairi swallows the lump that forms in her throat at the sight of them as she walks up and stares at herself: poised in an elegant pink and black dress, with her red hair done up and her blue eyes staring at the viewer in a lidded gaze… a far cry from how tattered she must appear now, with her hair loosened from its curls, the skirt of her dress ripped off up to her lower thigh, and herself not only donning a dead boyfriend’s jacket, with scratches on her face, but no longer being able to _sing_. Her career was ruined before it even had a chance to properly begin.

“I’m sorry, Kairi,” Riku says sadly, the keyblade glowing with every syllable. “They took your voice. I couldn’t stop them.” A pause, accompanied by a moment of her staring at the posters for just a bit longer, and then “... let’s go. Okay?” His voice is soft, but it still serves to pull her away from her own thoughts. “I don’t want to see you heartbroken over this. Especially when it’s my fault your voice is gone.”

**_I don’t blame_ ** **_you._ ** She really doesn’t, but she _does_ wish that her voice hadn’t been taken in the first place, so that she could speak to him once more. By the time he’d intervened on the attempt on her life, it seems that the others had stolen her voice before she’d even had a chance to cry out for him. Now she’s mute, and he’s dead, and she doesn’t have anything on her to remember him by but a jacket and this keyblade ─ 

“Hey. Kairi, come on…” He addresses her, and she swallows hard again, stubbornly tries to blink away the tears that have formed in her eyes but haven’t yet fallen. Right. Time to go. There’s no point standing around when there’s work to be done. Like finding out why the Organization, why _Xehanort_ , wanted her dead in the first place. Why _Riku_ had to die just to prevent her death. Why they took her voice alongside trying to take her life... yeah. Okay. It’s time for answers. Answers first, then revenge. She takes a step back and the keyblade hums. “Attagirl,” Riku tells her gently, and she chews the inside of her cheek. If only she could respond verbally. But she can’t.

What she opts for, instead, is rubbing her thumb absently, gently, against the keyblade’s hilt, as if she were holding his hand and stroking her thumb along his knuckles. The metal of the hilt is cool, of course, compared to how warm it would feel with skin on skin contact, and oh, how she already misses him…

“Kairi.” He says her name again, and she sniffles as she feels a tear slip loose. “Are you.. Oh, god, are you crying? I didn’t─ I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

She uses a sleeve to wipe at her cheek. **_I’m ─ fine._** Not fine. It’s a lie. She shakes her head. **_I’m sorry they killed you. And_** **_I wish you were here in person, instead of just your soul possessing this stupid weapon. I wish I could_** ** _talk_** ** _to you._**

Kairi glances down at the keyblade in her hands, and thinks for a moment. Right now, her priority is to track down the Organization. Find them again. Get answers… and then enact her revenge on Riku’s behalf. _Leave no room for mercy_. They weren’t going to show her mercy when they tried to kill her at the nightclub; why should she show them any? Tears of grief turn to tears of anger then, and she takes a deep, shaky breath before once again tightening her grip on the keyblade.

Chin up. Keep going. Do it for him. 

A moment’s silence passes before Riku finally speaks up again. “You’re going to go after them, aren’t you…?” There’s a slight hesitation to the question, as if he already knows the answer and isn’t sure he wants to know but has decided to ask anyway, and she nods. The keyblade sighs. “I guess I can’t stop you. Just… be careful. And remember, you’ve got me.” There’s a few more seconds’ worth of another pause, before “We should head out now, though, if you want to get started.”

**_Right._ ** She turns away from the posters and starts walking, looking at the keyblade. **_So… where to, next?_ **

Miraculously enough, Riku then directs her to a side street where she finds a person lying on the sidewalk, seemingly unconscious. It’s a woman. As Kairi approaches, she looks her over. Looking to be somewhere around Kairi’s own age, she has short, raven dark hair, is wearing a black dress, and there’s a small, black cube floating above her, emitting an almost inaudible humming sound. When Kairi gets close enough, she at first ignores the cube and stares at the body itself. 

… It looks like the woman has been attacked ─ there’s blood both staining her torso and pooled beneath her, and despite both of her eyes being open she doesn’t appear to be breathing.

“Hey,” Riku addresses the body. “Are you─”

There’s no response from the woman, herself, but the cube itself glows when a voice speaks up in reply. “Who’s there?” It asks in a feminine voice, and Kairi worries her bottom lip between her teeth anxiously. She hates that she can’t answer.

“It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you,” Riku tells the cube, and Kairi continues chewing her lip. “Although, you uh… you seem to not be breathing. Are you─”

“I… think I’m dead,” the cube says. “Am I dead?” There’s a pause, and then a continuation of “... I am, aren’t I? Damnit. The Dusks got me after all.”

“You were attacked by Dusks?” Riku asks, and Kairi frowns, glancing around. There doesn’t seem to be any of them on this street. She also notices that it’s eerily silent, with an odd lack of other people. It’s just her and this woman. … and strangely enough, Kairi also realizes that in between here and the spot where Riku died, she hasn’t seen any other human beings _at all_ . Which is strange ─ this is still a part of the City; there should be _people_. 

The cube hums in response to Riku’s question. “Yes. I remember running away, trying to escape the Organization, and I ran into Dusks. More of them together than I’ve ever seen in one place outside of the Organization, honestly. I thought I could fend them off, but even for me there were… so many. _Too_ many.”

… Kairi turns her gaze back to the woman, then to the cube itself. **_She was attacked by Dusks, but I don’t see any around here. Did they all leave after killing her…?_ **

“Back up. You said you were trying to escape the Organization.” Riku’s tone is somewhat wary, with a bit of curiosity mixed in.

More glowing from the cube as it replies, “Yes. I’d been wanting to leave for some time.”

“Do you know anything about them wanting to kill a woman named Kairi?”

“I─ sort of. I remember there being talks of a plan to go after her for her voice ─ but for reasons I unfortunately wasn’t able to find out for myself. I don’t remember anything about them planning to _kill_ her, though.”

Kairi narrows her eyes. **_What could they possibly want my_ ** **_voice_ ** **_for?_ **

“So you’re ex-Organization. Why? Especially when they’ve got influence in a number of places.” Riku seems adamant on getting as much information out of this woman as possible, and Kairi is grateful for it. 

“In my honest opinion? They’ve been growing too powerful, and gaining too _much_ influence… Xehanort, Ansem, and Xemnas, especially.”

“That makes sense,” Riku muses, though his tone is slightly bitter.

“So I decided I no longer agreed with any of it ─ especially after I lost two of my closest friends among their ranks ─ and that it was time to abandon the Organization as a whole. Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far before the Dusks found me, and I was outnumbered and attacked. It’s strange, how they seemed to find me at all; I guess my treason was discovered almost immediately, and the Dusks were sent to kill me for it. Looks like...they succeeded, despite my attempts to fight them all.” There’s a hint of sadness in the voice.

“Can I ask what your name is?” Riku inquires, and the cube laughs softly.

“I guess you can, yeah. It’s Xion.”

“Xion. Okay.” Riku sighs. “I hate to ask this, but… could we borrow you?”

“‘Borrow’ me? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean your consciousness. You seem to be able to communicate through this cube, even after dying. I’m dead, too, but I’m talking to you through the weapon my girlfriend is carrying.”

“I… first of all, I’m sorry you’re also dead. Second of all, I’d like to know exactly what you would need me _for_ ,” Xion tells him, and Riku is quick to answer.

“You could take us to the Organization.”

“I─ no! No, I don’t want to go back.” The cube vibrates, then, as if conveying anxiety on Xion’s end. “Please, don’t make me go back there. Not after what happened to Roxas and Axel… why would you want to go after the Organization at all?”

“Xion, please understand,” Riku begins gently, “ _Kairi_ is my girlfriend. The same woman they were after. They weren’t successful in killing her, but they did manage to take her voice from her like they were wanting to. And she wants answers. She _deserves_ answers. Please. Honestly, we’re almost lucky we ran into you here. Think about it… they tried to kill Kairi, and it looks like they wanted you dead, too, just for abandoning them. We won’t force you to take us to them, we can eventually find the way by ourselves, I’m sure, but… don’t you think you deserve answers, as well?”

“I…” Xion trails off, and there’s a moment of silence from her before she finally speaks again. “Alright. Fine. I’ll go with you, and guide you on your way to track them down.” Her voice then adopts a wry tone. “I suppose it beats waiting to be transformed into a Dusk, myself. Nobody wants that.”

“Thank you. I mean it. Alright, now, Kairi.” Riku addresses her next, and Kairi looks down at the keyblade. “Do you know how to integrate Xion’s consciousness into the keyblade like mine was?”

**_No, I don’t…_ ** She shakes her head.

“That’s a no, then,” he muses. “Okay, that’s not a problem.” And his tone is encouraging more so than anything. “Just take the keyblade ─ and Xion, this _might_ be painless on your end, I’m not exactly sure ─ and hold it up to the cube.”

Kairi does as instructed: lifts the keyblade, touches the tip of it to the cube’s side, and watches as, after a moment, the cube glows once more even without Xion talking.This time instead of just glowing blue, though, it glows blue around the edges with a crackle of electric white in the middle. It takes just a moment for the white to build up before it’s charged enough to transfer over to the keyblade. When Kairi finally lowers the weapon, it glows just the same as all the times before as Riku hums in satisfaction.

“There.” A bit of a pause, and then “You can’t hear her anymore, but Xion’s in here with me now and she says to be careful. She says the Dusks that attacked her did so fairly recently ─ which I guess means they could be in any one of the areas close by… hmm? What’s that? Oh, she thinks there’s a chance they might have also returned to their masters at the Organization. Either way, Kairi, from the both of us: be on your guard the whole way. Alright? Oh yeah, and Xion also says that with her in here, now, too, there are the memories of some attack abilities that got uploaded along with her consciousness ─ some she learned during her time with the Organization. Sounds like you could use them when you go up against Xehanort and the others. Which is ironic in itself, considering who they are.” As he says this, Riku’s tone is surprisingly cheerful.

Kairi smiles in amusement at said tone, and then glances at Xion’s body. She feels bad, somewhat, just leaving it there, but she doesn’t know what else to do ─ it’s just that, now, a body; with the other woman’s consciousness now residing within the keyblade, it’s just an empty shell of what Xion _was_ ─ and Kairi frowns for a moment, chewing at her bottom lip in thought before finally moving to kneel beside Xion for a moment.

“Kairi…?” Riku says her name in a curious tone, and Kairi hums softly as she reaches to gently close Xion’s eyelids. 

**_There. Rest easier, now, and I’ll avenge you alongside Riku. Okay?_ **

“Oh. I see. She says thank you,” Riku tells her softly, and Kairi nods before rising to her feet once more. Time to go. Time to continue looking for Xehanort and the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was... admittedly difficult to write at *first*. Once I got a certain sentence out, though, it was pretty smooth sailing from there. 
> 
> Also: I hope most, if not all, of you caught the "Nobody" pun I placed in this chapter.


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